An arresting photograph, an iconic poster and a stunning painting are not created by accident. They all rely on basic principles of graphic design that help create a composition that invokes a specific mood. You can use those same guiding graphic design principles to create the mood you want in the rooms of your house. Understanding the basics of graphic design can help you choose colors, arrange furniture and decorate your rooms with confidence so that your choices will create the mood and atmosphere you want.
The Seven Principles and How They Apply to Interior Design
The seven underlying principles of graphic design are balance, rhythm, unity, scale, proportion, emphasis and variety. Each of the principles has a specific role in design, but all of them work together to present a cohesive theme and mood. Each of them also plays a specific role in decorating your home, and the way you employ them can turn a bedroom into a serene haven, your kitchen into a center of creativity and your living room into a comfortable, engaging space for entertaining. Let’s take a look at the principle of balance and how you can use it to create a design aesthetic and mood in your home.
Balance Provides Stability
Balance helps anchor your room. A design that doesn’t pay attention to balance will give the room that “not quite right” feeling. To help you get an idea of what we mean when we talk about balance, imagine drawing two intersecting lines down the center of your room, dividing it into two sets of halves. A balanced design distributes objects around the room so that the visual weight in each half balances out. There are three common types of balance.
Symmetrical balance invokes a solid, traditional aesthetic. If you face a pair of love seats opposite each other with a coffee table in the middle, the design is symmetrical – the same on either side of the room. Symmetrical designs tend to feel formal, and are ideal for dining rooms or formal parlors. If you want to evoke a stately, formal atmosphere, a symmetrical balance will help you achieve the mood.
Asymmetrical balance is more contemporary and can make a room feel informal and less structured. It involves arranging dissimilar objects in such a way that they visually balance each other. You might, for example, place a sofa on one side of the space and a pair of armchairs flanking an end table on the other. The elements are different, but they take up the same amount of space in your visual field, balancing the two sides of the room. Asymmetrical arrangements work well in most contemporary homes, conveying the more casual feeling of contemporary architectural design.
Radial balance is rarely used in interior design, but it can create an unusual and striking room design. It involves spacing elements evenly around a center point. You might employ radial symmetry when arranging furnishings and accents in a rounded breakfast nook or window seat area to create a feeling of balance and harmony.
Keep in mind that balance involves more than just your furniture arrangements. Architectural elements in your room – doors, windows, fireplaces and even moldings – carry visual weight, as do the paintings, shelves and decorations you hang on your walls. Understanding how visual balance works can help you offset common design problems, such as the wall with two doors or unevenly spaced windows, by taking their effect on the room’s design into account.
Balance is only one of the major graphic design principles that can help you create a harmonious design. In future blog posts on our graphic design blog, we’ll look at how you can apply other graphic design principles in decorating your home.
